The Great New York Deicing Debacle

My day started well: commuting to work went without a hitch. So it was with a spring in my step that I tackled the five-leg day, which started too early and would end at midnight, if all went according to plan.
A look at my schedule, however, showed out and backs between New York and Washington all day. Not good.
I got the airplane ready, without a captain in sight. Minutes before departure, he arrived and we were soon on our way.
I took off and banked to the south on our way to Washington. During the flight we noted a slight vibration but couldn't pinpoint its origin. We varied thrust settings and speeds to make note of when it manifested itself and at the conclusion of another very satisfying River Visual to 19, I landed uneventfully.
The captain wrote up the mechanical issue, causing the airplane to be grounded and our next leg to New to cancel. So we sat. For five long hours, until our next JFK turn.
A worried passenger on his way to Israel approached us. "Will I make my connection," he asked, having noticed the delay of the inbound aircraft. We promised to do our best.
We pulled into the gate in New York ahead of our revised arrival time. I think the Israel-bound man made his flight.
After our new passenger load had boarded, we called for de-icing. It had been snowing for an hour now and the airplane was covered in a dusting of the white stuff.
"I think both trucks are broken," an operations person radioed back.
I reminisced about the same situation last year, roughly around this time of year, ahead of the first forecast snow. Again, it seemed the company had managed to be taken by surprise by a completely expected need for the de-icing equipment to work.
After a half-an-hour, we finally pulled into the de-icing pad. The truck sprayed us with heated Type I fluid, then the longer-lasting Type IV. But seconds into the application of the second fluid, the driver informed us that the truck had once again broken down. Tired and frustrated passengers could do little more than watch the crew outside fiddling with the wounded machine.
It took so long that we were about to reach our holdover time, that point at which de-icing fluid loses its effectiveness.
After much back and forth and some huffing and puffing from us and a company aircraft waiting in line behind us to be sprayed, our rampies borrowed a truck from another airline and for the second time of the evening de-iced us from scratch. Two full hours after closing the aircraft door, we reached the runway and arrived at our gate in Washington at 1:30 a.m.
While we sat on the de-icing pad in New York, I couldn't help but feel terrible for our passengers. It's no fun sitting in cramped jet, exhausted, late at night with little ventilation (our air conditioning system has to be shut off during the de-icing process to avoid fumes from entering the cabin). We tried our best to keep them informed on what was happening, however embarassing it was, but knew they were angry at us.
I don't blame them.
What they might not have realized, however, is that we were angry too. Both my captain and I are commuters, so by the time we arrived at our hotel we had been up for close to 20 hours. We wanted to get going as badly as any passenger but could not believe the comedy of errors that unfolded before our eyes. Two hours to de-ice one airplane, admittedly twice, is simply unacceptable. The company should provide equipment in working condition both for the safety of the rampers operating it and for the overall efficiency of the operation. But especially these days money talks and corners are cut. God bless those rampers for working in such conditions. I admired their resolve to get us cleaned up, eventhough the weather was lifting, and their dedication to safety in the face of these daily challenges.
It should be an interesting winter.

Displaced

A few months ago, my airline announced it would be closing its Boston base. All of the domicile's 240 pilots would have to find new homes throughout the system.
For me, New York's John F. Kennedy seemed like the best choice and I was awarded the new base effective this month. Tomorrow will be my first trip out of there and also my first time commuting to work by air.
Unlike many others in this line of work, I have been fortunate enough to drive to work for the past two years. What many outside of the profession do not know is that a large number of airline pilots fly great distances to get to work. I know of one pilot, for instance, who lives in the desert outside of Las Vegas and had to commute to Richmond, VA for many years. That included a long trek by car to Vegas or sometimes L.A., followed by two, or sometimes three flights to his base. After too many such trips to and from work, he was diagnosed with chronic fatigue and removed from flying for some time.
Another pilot I know flies all the way from Ireland and while I thought that was crazy, I met another guy who commutes from Germany to Newark to get to work.
While I have been bemoaning the new arrangement, it is not quite as bad for me although JFK can be a tricky airport to get in and out of because of congestion, heavy passenger loads and of course, the uncertainty of weather. It is also a major ding to an already questionable quality of life.
It will be a new and not necessarily pleasant experience, but it has shown me just how lucky I have been in the past two years to live a mere 45 minutes from the airport I flew out of. Life will be harder, the days longer and I fully expect to get caught in Kennedy on my way home and hardly relish the idea of spending a night in the crew lounge to await the first flight home the following day.
But unfortunately it comes with the job and is one of those many unsavory things we have to put up with to continue working in this job we love so much. I don't know of many other professions that require people to commute such long distances, never knowing whether you will make the flight to or from work.
While you may assume that riding my airline to work, especially on such a frequent route, shouldn't be too bad, think again. My airline would actually charge me for the service. Yes, I would have to pay my employer to get to a base I had never signed up for in the first place and that is just not acceptable to me since I can ride a couple of other carriers for free.
This really is a unique and messed up line of work. But the fact that so many would endure such difficulties every day of the week only goes to show that the job is fueled by passion.